Lost in Chicago
by Will X
Summary: Alternate ending to Sanitized For Your Protection. On hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

"THEY KNOW EVERY PLACE YOU'VE BEEN!" Shouts a panic-stricken Rollo Tookus over the phone.

"Rollo." I respond. "I called you from my hotel phone simply because I thought our prior conversation ended abruptly. If you're going to-"

"You shopped at Wild and Wicked costumes." He says, grabbing my attention. The shop where Molly and I had bought our costumes to sneak back into the Draconian. "You bought one colonial male costume, and one girl's native-"

"Okay, Rollo." I respond calmly. "What do you know, and how do you know it."

"It's the debit card, Timmy" he replies calmly. "They can track you when you use it." I contemplate this as Rollo continues talking. "You bought a pack of gum and a lot of BonBons at Mr. King's Chicago grocery. You had a dinner at Le Dinner Magnificent la Chicago." I nod, nothing out of the ordinary there. Then he says "Somebody (probably Molly) bought a grape-scented Shampoo at the gift shop for a hotel called..let me see here...The Drakonian." I drop the phone. Stumbling backwards, I grab the nightstand to steady me. "Timmy? Timmy are you there?" Rollo's voice comes over the phone. I ignore it. This is big. They're tracking us. And Molly compromised the

"Molly!" I shout.

"Hmm?" She replies from the bathroom where she was idly messing with her hair.

"Your debit card!" I shout. "They're tracking us using your debit card!" She stops and turns.

"But that means…" her eyes widen.

"They know we're at the Draconian. Pack your bags, we'll argue about this once we're far from the hotel." I say, before turning to throw my own meager possessions in my backpack.

"Timmy? Timmy? Are you ther-" CLICK. I turn the phone off. I can deal with Rollo later, but now I need to think. Corrina Corrina is in a hotel called the Windy Palms. I'll look it up later.

"Ready!" Molly chirps eagerly. I nod.

"Sneak out the alley using the route we used to get to dinner." I say. "Wait for me by the used book store we passed on the walk." She nods, and leaves, I sigh, and turn to my next task; moving the big fat bear out of his nice tub, and out of the compromised hotel room.

"Total!" I shout. A "Grummph." sound echoes from the bathtub. "We're out of Bon Bons, and we need you to help us get some." A splash sounds from the room, and seconds later the bear stands in the doorway. "Come one." I mutter, grabbing my bag. I pause at the doorway to take one last look at the brief headquarters of Failure Inc. But I shake my head. I'm a detective. Detectives don't get sentimental.


	2. Chapter 2

Once in the alleyway, I pause for breath. Molly and the bear stare at me, waiting for an order. I glance at them, and put my head in my hands.

"We were so close." I moan. We would have to postpone our storming of Corrina Corrina's hotel, the _Windy Palms_ until we can find a new base of operations.

"We need to get away from here!" I shout. "Molly, hail us a taxi!" She starts to question me but stops and turns, heading out of the alley to follow my orders. I turn to the fat bear. "Go Total." He looks at me and grunts. "Go! We'll rendezvous as soon as we reach another hotel where we can stay, understand?" GO!" I am shouting now. The bear looks sad and moans, but understands. He turns away from me, looking back for just a second, before bounding off into the night.

* * *

The taxi drives slowly, stopping in traffic every two minutes. Our driver swears loudly in Spanish every time he slams on the breaks. Eventually this gets annoying and I slide the plastic partition shut. It is better this way. Now Molly and I can talk in private.

"We need a plan." I announce. Molly looks up from her sketchbook, in which she is furiously writing the words "Mrs. Molly Failure".

"Hmm?" she says slowly, dropping her pen.

"Where should we go? How will we find a place to sleep?" I pause. "Dang it, we were so close!" Molly frowns.

"I'm sorry, Timmy." she says slowly in a strange tone. I know that tone. My mother uses it often enough when I anger her. My mother….

Molly continues. "It's not my fault they were tracking the card Timmy. I didn't know." I ignore her.

"We need to find a place to sleep. Checking into a hotel- _any_ hotel-is beyond our price range _sans_ debit card."

"We could just check into it for the night, and then pay in the morning, I guess?" I contemplate her suggestion. It might work, but I'm not sure I want to exhaust our lone resource; the debit card. And, I suddenly realize, I grasp little, if any, of the mechanics of the Debit Card system.

"How much is on the card?"

"My parents said they put a couple hundred thousand dollars on the thing, I _think._ " My heart races. A couple _hundred_ _ **thousand**_! I've never seen just a thousand, let alone that much. I could take $108 to repay the YIP-YAP funds Molly had given me (I had unfortunately been forced to use it all to 'tip' a waiter at our restaurant to keep him from being suspicious about two children dining alone.). Another hundred could fund the ventures of Total Failure Inc. for the next year.

At first I wonder how Molly's parents can afford to plop two hundred thousand dollars in a checking account, and give the debit card to their daughter, but the. it hits me (thanks to the astute detective skills of Yours Truly). Molly's parents are rich. Not obscenely wealthy, but enough to avoid day-to-day financial stress (A point my mother has yet to reach). It all makes sense; the debit card, Mr Moskin's job in Peru, the fact that the Moskins can afford the latest model cellphone, and finally, that Mr Moskins has the free time to develop an unsettlingly boring hobby; road maps.

All that is fine and well, but the fact of the matter remains; the debit card is simply too dangerous to be used. Every time that thing is used to pay for our expenses we give my mother and the Moskins more and more information they can use to track us. The Moskins, my mother, and _Doorman Dave_.

"It's too late to check into a hotel." I say. "And we have absolutely no where else to go."

"I have an idea." Molly says.

* * *

It is 3:00 in the morning, and me, Total and Molly are entrenched In A 24-hour All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. We have been here for four hours, and Molly plans to stay the entire night, as far as I can tell. She passed off sometime before midnight, and the fat bear entered what, for all I know, could be a food coma. That leaves me alone, sitting at a table stacked high with empty plates, and occupied by myself and two unconscious creatures. With that, a decide it's time to make a call.

I excuse myself from the table, and ask the restaurant's lone attendant, a single 19 year-old janitor lazily mopping the floor, where I can find their phone. He doesn't speak, just points a thin, gloved finger at an archaic phone booth near the door.

I shut myself inside it, and turn to the pay phone inside. There are two calls that must be made.

One to a friend who is indeed quite rotund, whose job was the Sergeant-at-arms, of YIP-YAP, an organization that lost all its funds.

However, it is the middle of the night, and calling Rollo would wake him up, making him cranky. It might also wake up his father and mother, who would be surprised to learn Rollo has been aiding me. They would not only ground him, making me lose my only source of intel on my mother's apparently frantic search for me, but they would use what _I've_ told _Rollo_ to increase their search, and possibly successfully find me and my crew.

So that leaves my other operative still in California; My Great-Aunt Colander.

* * *

 **I currently have a lot of stories I'm working on, which explains why this chapter is so late (for anyone who's been reading). If you read this chapter, and actually like this story, please review so I know whether or not to move it higher on my priorities list.**


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